Before the drop of the puck between these 2 glorious teams, I will post “Joey’s keys to the game” for both teams. However, I must admit that, and much to the delight of our resident commenter who played in the Q, the use of old hockey cliches may not be applicable. Contrary to the next series the Habs weapon de jour had to be speed to beat the slower Bruins, and heavy fore check on the younger and more inexperienced d men. The Rangers have more strength where the B’s were weak. i.e speed and experienced d. The old cliches of speed & fore checking will have to be replaced with other element to exploit the weaknesses (what are ther) of the Rangers. Make no mistake that speed and fore checking remains part of the game, but the Habs will have to use other “cliches” if they wish to beat the Rangers.

What do the Rangers have to do to beat Les Canadiens? We’ll see. Suffice to say Price will be harder to beat than MAF was. Stay tune for “Joey’s keys to the game”.

waiting. Can i send you my email address so I can get an alert when you post it?
I will do my best to post it on all of my social media pages too. I follow the rangers on there, so if it gets in the right hands, upper mgmt and coaches may see it and use it

joey4id - May 15, 2014 at 6:53 PM

No need. It’s been well documented that NHL teams read my comments and use them to prep their teams.

billiam55 - May 15, 2014 at 6:17 PM

habs and rangers play similar styles. they also both have great goaltending. would have never seen this matchup coming!

dewzer - May 15, 2014 at 8:10 PM

Safe to say that fighting won’t be one of the keys to the series despite the lead photo.

I am a huge Rangers fan, and as I go into this series, I feel like the Rangers are playing against the Rangers. The teams are very similar, with the major difference being that the Canadiens get more offense from their D and the Rangers have more offensive depth, but neither of those things really sways a series. It’s going to come down to which team’s Power Play scores more and which goalie can steal more games. You’ve got the two Olympic gold-medal game goalies in a rematch here and while Price won the first battle, decisively, Lundqvist had far less talent around him in that game and both goalies are capable of winning a game or series on their own. It’s folly to predict the winner or number of games in the series–just sit back and enjoy it. It should be a fast-paced, exciting series.

Could not agree more, should be a tight series between these 2 original 6 teams ! Let’s Go Rangers !

joey4id - May 16, 2014 at 9:13 AM

From the NY Times;
There is one place where Henrik Lundqvist is not King, and that is Montreal, where the Rangers will open the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday afternoon.

Lundqvist has not won a game at Bell Centre since March 17, 2009. His career numbers are those of a commoner: 4-5-2, with an .876 save percentage and a 4.25 goals against average. Compare that with his regal overall statistics (309-195-62, .920 and 2.26).

joey4id - May 16, 2014 at 9:15 AM

and, counting the Sochi Olympics in Russia, where he backstopped Canada to a gold medal, Carey Price’s record in elimination games this season is a mind-boggling 5-0, with a .984 save percentage and a 0.40 goals-against average. That includes a 29-save performance in Game 7 on Wednesday, a 2-1 victory over the Boston Bruins, the N.H.L.’s top team in the regular season.

OK, so let’s get this under control. The last time Henrik Lundqvist played in Montreal (a 4-1 loss) only 7 Rangers currently on the roster were on that team. The Rangers were done in by the line of all-time greats wingers Kris Newbury (-3) and Wojtek Wolski (-3), centered by Mike Rupp (-2). Of the players still on the Rangers, only Carl Hagelin (-1), Marc Staal (-1) and Brad Richards (-1) were negative +/- players in the game. I just don’t see how Wojtek Wolski, Mike Rupp, Kris Newbury, John Mitchell, Stu Bickell, Michael Del Zotto and the others will have much of an effect on this game, so I don’t see how you really draw a line from that team to this team. You know, going back to 1924 the Canadiens have beaten the Rangers… bla bla bla. All that matters is what is happening now.